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THE LATE MRS NULL

BY

FRANK R. STOCKTON

1886

CHAPTER I.

There was a wide entrance gate to the old family mansion of Midbranch,
but it was never opened to admit the family or visitors; although
occasionally a load of wood, drawn by two horses and two mules, came
between its tall chestnut posts, and was taken by a roundabout way among
the trees to a spot at the back of the house, where the chips of several
generations of sturdy wood choppers had formed a ligneous soil deeper
than the arable surface of any portion of the nine hundred and fifty
acres which formed the farm of Midbranch. This seldom opened gate was in
a corner of the lawn, and the driving of carriages, or the riding of
horses through it to the porch at the front of the house would have been
the ruin of the short, thick grass which had covered that lawn, it was
generally believed, ever since Virginia became a State.

But there had to be some way for people who came in carriages or on
horseback to get into the house, and therefore the fence at the bottom
of the lawn, at a point directly in front of the porch, was crossed by a
set of broad wooden steps, five outside and five inside, with a platform
at the top. These stairs were wide enough to accommodate eight people
abreast; so that if a large carriage load of visitors arrived, none of
them need delay in crossing the fence. At the outside of the steps ran
the narrow road which entered the plantation a quarter of a mile away,
and passed around the lawn and the garden to the barns and stables at
the back.

On the other side of the road, undivided from it by hedge or fence,
stretched, like a sea gently moved by a groundswell, a vast field,
sometimes planted in tobacco, and sometimes in wheat. In the midst of
this field stood a tall persimmon tree which yearly dropped its
half candied fruit upon the first light snow of the winter. It is true
that persimmons, quite fit to eat, were to be found on this tree at an
earlier period than this, but such fruit was never noticed by the people
in those parts, who would not rudely wrench from Jack Frost his one
little claim to rivalry with the sun as a fruit ripener. To the right of
the field was a wide extent of pasture land, running down to a small
stream, or "branch," which, flowing between two other streams of the
same kind a mile or two on either side of it, had given its name to the
place. In front, to the left, lay a great forest of chestnut, oak,
sassafras, and sweet gum, with here and there a clump of tall pines,
standing up straight and stiff with an air of Puritanic condemnation of
the changing fashions of the foliage about them.

On one side of the platform of the broad stile, which has been
mentioned, sat one summer afternoon, the lady of the house. She was a
young woman, and although her face was a good deal shadowed by her
far spreading hat, it was easy to perceive that she was a handsome one.
She was the niece of Mr Robert Brandon, the elderly bachelor who owned
Midbranch; and her mother, long since dead, had called her Roberta,
which was as near as she could come to the name of her only brother.

Miss Roberta's father was a man whose mind and time were entirely given
up to railroads; and although he nominally lived in New York, he was,
for the greater part of the year, engaged in endeavors to forward his
interests somewhere west of the Mississippi. Two or three months of the
winter were generally spent in his city home. At these times he had his
daughter with him, but the rest of the year she lived with her uncle,
whose household she directed with much good will and judgment. The old
gentleman did not keep her all the summer at Midbranch. He knew what was
necessary for a young lady who had been educated in Germany and
Switzerland, and who had afterwards made a very favorable impression in
Paris and London; and so, during the hot weather, he took her with him
to one of the fashionable Southern resorts, where they always stayed
exactly six weeks.

The gentleman who was sitting on the other side of the platform, with
his face turned towards her, had known Miss Roberta for a year or more,
having met her at the North, and also in the Virginia mountains; and
being now on a visit to the Green Sulphur Springs, about four miles from
Midbranch, he rode over to see her nearly every day... Continue reading book >>